The inextricable and vital linkage between living organisms
and their physical environment, or habitat, is generally well
known to scientists and the public. In this report we have looked
at species populations and their habitats from a broad regional
perspective, focusing on large-scale physical landscape features
as the basic habitat units for protection and conservation. The
following general information is provided to help understand the
regional physical classification units that were used as the
basis for grouping and delineating regional habitat complexes.

Geomorphology, or physiography, is a distinct branch
of geology that deals with the nature and origin of landforms,
the topographic features such as hills, plains, glacial terraces,
ridges, or valleys that occur on the earth's surface. Regional
geomorphology deals with the geology and associated
landforms over a large regional landscape, with an emphasis on
classifying and describing uniform areas of topography, relief,
geology, altitude, and landform patterns. These regions are
generally referred to as geomorphic or physiographic
provinces or regions and have been classified and
described in various texts for the northeastern region and for
the United States as a whole. The larger regional provinces are
often further subdivided into subunits or sections,
depending on the classification system used.

A rich and varied regional physical landscape, containing a
number of distinctive regional geomorphic provinces and sections,
is evident within the New York Bight watershed. This geomorphic
variety is the result of several concurrent and successional
events: the combination of complex bedrock and surficial geology
and recent glacial history in the northern half of the region;
historical mountain-building and regional land uplifting forces;
and the dynamic processes of erosion, sedimentation, and chemical
and physical weathering acting differentially on rock types of
various hardnesses. Such extraordinary physiographic diversity
and geological complexity, along with climate and historical
events, have contributed directly to the region's remarkable
biological diversity and the current distribution patterns of its
fauna and flora. It is clear that the high-elevation,
carbonate-rich peaks and sedimentary rocks of the Catskills
support a biota entirely different from that of the
unconsolidated and acidic sands of the New Jersey pine barrens
along the low-lying Atlantic coast, just as both of these differ
strongly from the erosion-resistant traprock ridges of the
Palisades and the crystalline metamorphic rocks of the New York
-New Jersey Highlands.

One of the most interesting and significant factors to shape
the modern landscape of a substantial portion of the New York
Bight watershed, and, indeed, much of North America, has been the
work of glaciers and the continental ice sheet during the most
recent glacial period, the Pleistocene Epoch. Although
the Pleistocene began more than a million years ago and was
characterized by a series of at least four major glacial advances
(glacial stages) and retreats (interglacial stages), it is the
last glacial event, the Wisconsin glacial stage, that
has had the most profound influence on the landscape of the
northern section of this region. The Wisconsin ice sheet or
glacier, which began between 70,000 and 100,000 years ago, was
the most extensive in size and advanced the furthest south of all
the Pleistocene glaciers, and only retreated from this region
between 10,000 and 15,000 years ago. It has resulted in the two
sections of the New York Bight watershed, the northern glaciated
portion and the southern unglaciated portion, standing in marked
contrast to each other, and has added a measurable and observable
distinctiveness to the landscape and biota of each area and to
the watershed as a whole.

During the height of glaciation, the northern section of the
watershed was covered by an ice sheet up to 1.6 kilometers (1.0
mile) thick, though its thickness was considerably less along its
margins and eastern portions. Over the entire glaciated portion
of the watershed, a layer of unsorted and unconsolidated glacial
debris, glacial till, ranging from clay particles to
huge boulders, was directly deposited on the landscape by the
advancing glacier. Following the retreat of the ice sheet, the
post-Pleistocene landscape, with its rock-strewn surface and
polished bedrock surfaces, was devoid of higher plants and
animals, leaving a clean slate for the migration and colonization
of modern plant and animal communities in the region.

The former edge of the Wisconsin ice sheet is conspicuously
marked by a distinctive, ridge-like terminal or end
moraine running approximately east-west through the center
of the watershed study area, and effectively delineating the line
between the glaciated and unglaciated sections. The moraine is
composed of rock debris from the bedrock of New England, New
York, and northern New Jersey that was eroded, ground up,
transported southward, and deposited at the edge of the ice sheet
in those areas where it remained in place for a relatively long
while, long enough for rock debris to accumulate. The terminal
moraine averages 1.6 to 3.2 kilometers (1 to 2 miles) in width
along most of its length in the watershed. It contains numerous
boulders and appears more like a range of low hummocky knolls and
hills, intermediate valleys, and kettle hole basins than an
unbroken ridgeline. On Long Island, two distinct and roughly
parallel end moraines make up the core of the island: the Ronkonkoma
Moraine and the Harbor Hills Moraine. At the
eastern end of the island these two moraines are quite distinct
from each other and are separated by an intermorainal area 19 to
22 kilometers (12 to 14 miles) wide, which includes the Peconic
Bays. Toward the western end of the island, about 32 kilometers
(20 miles) east of New York City, the two moraines intersect and
are united to form a single end moraine, which continues westward
across Staten Island and into Perth Amboy, New Jersey, and from
there northwestward and westward across northern New Jersey.

As the Wisconsin glacial front retreated in response to a
warming global climate, the glacier left many smaller recessional
moraines and other distinctive glacial landforms, e.g., kames,
kettles, eskers, and drumlins, across the landscape north of the
terminal moraine. Meltwater from the melting ice sheet, in
association with moraines, created several large glacial lakes in
the watershed; the most prominent are Glacial Lake Passaic,
Glacial Lake Hackensack, Glacial Lake Hudson, and Glacial Lake
Albany. These lakes lasted for thousands of years and their
remnants are visible today in the form of lakeshore sand and dune
deposits and basins of deep marsh peats and lake sediments. In
addition to these large lakes, there are many smaller lakes and
wetlands north of the terminal moraine that were also formed from
the blockages of preglacial streams by glacial deposits or
excavated by the ice into the bedrock. All of the 60 natural
lakes that occur in New Jersey, for example, occur north of the
moraine.

The weight of the Wisconsin ice sheet caused the crust of the
continent to sag, depressing the land east and north of New York
City and elevating the coastline south of the city. During the
maximum period and extent of glaciation during the Wisconsin
stage, much of the surface water was locked up as frozen ice in
the ice sheet and sea level was some 107 to 122 meters (350 to
400 feet) lower than at present, exposing hundred of miles of the
continental shelf in the New York Bight. With the warming of the
climate and the retreat of the ice sheet, the depressed land
rebounded and sea level rose to its present level and continues
to rise.

It is the intricate pattern and diversity of physical
landscape features -- geology, landforms, topography, altitude,
relief, geological and glacial history, and hydrology -- and the
associated biological communities and species populations in the
New York Bight watershed that have served as the basis and focal
point of this report's approach to identifying and delineating
regionally significant habitat complexes. The habitat complexes
described in this report represent units that are closely
integrated with natural landscape features rather than with
political boundaries, property lines, and/or local species
occurrences. In this project, the geomorphic region has served as
the primary hierarchical landscape unit within which the various
individual habitat complexes have been grouped and described.
These geomorphic regions (provinces) are summarized here and
shown in Figure 3.

The states of New York and New Jersey have each developed
similar statewide physiographic classifications and units, based
on broader regional classifications, and their units were able to
be joined, integrated, and described for the purposes of this
report. In its report on ecological zones of southern and western
New York, the New York State Department of Environmental
Conservation recognizes a number of zones and subzones that are
roughly equivalent to geomorphic or physiographic regions
described in existing earlier classifications of the physiography
and physical geology of the state. Similarly, the state of New
Jersey recognizes five physiographic regions in the state, all of
which along its northern border are contiguous with similar
regions or zones in adjoining New York State. Those physiographic
regions occurring in the New York Bight study area, arranged from
those closest to the coast to those furthest inland and up the
watershed, are listed and briefly described in this section.

1. Atlantic Coastal Plain ProvinceEmbayed Section

New Jersey Outer Coastal Plain

New Jersey Inner Coastal Plain

Long Island Coastal Lowlands

Barrier Beach System

The Coastal Plain of the eastern United States is an extensive
seaward-sloping plain of marine sands, clays, gravels, and marls
that stretches 3,540 kilometers (2,200 miles) along the coast
from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, to the Mexican border, and
continues another 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) southward into
Mexico. That portion of the Coastal Plain from the southern tip
of Florida along the east coast north to Cape Cod, is referred to
as the Atlantic Coastal Plain Province and includes the coastline
of the New York Bight watershed. The Coastal Plain in this region
is further subdivided into several smaller geomorphic units,
called sections, based on differences in geology and topography.
The Embayed Section, from North Carolina to Cape Cod,
includes the New York Bight and is the area of most recent
submergence as a result of the weight of the last ice sheet and
subsequent postglacial rebound, or rise, of the land. This
section is characterized by broad peninsular tracts, drowned
river estuaries, and a series of coastal terraces that extend
back almost to the Fall Line, the boundary between the Piedmont
and the Coastal Plain (see Piedmont). The land surface of the
Coastal Plain is often viewed together with the submerged
offshore continental shelf as part of a continuous surface; when
so considered, the combined Coastal Plain and adjacent shelf
stretches from Florida to Newfoundland, though the area north of
Cape Cod is wholly submerged. The width of the Coastal Plain
proper, not including the Continental Shelf, is narrowest in the
north in the vicinity of the New York Bight study area and widens
out to a broad plain hundreds of kilometers wide in the
southeastern United States.

The Coastal Plain Province of the Bight includes about 60% of
the total land area of the state of New Jersey, almost the entire
southeastern part of the state south of lower New York Bay and
Raritan Bay, and extends northeastward into New York State to
include all of Long Island. This region is characterized by low
topographic relief and occupies nearly the entire coastal section
of the Bight watershed, except for the immediate urban core,
which is included within the Piedmont and New England Upland
Provinces. Elevations range from sea level to nearly 120 meters
(ca. 400 feet) above, with most of the area being less than 30
meters (ca. 100 feet) in elevation. Climatically, this area is
strongly influenced by the ocean and is thus cooler in summer and
warmer in winter than are the more interior areas of the Bight
watershed.

In New Jersey, the Coastal Plain is composed of an Inner and
Outer Coastal Plain and, although they are not greatly
different geologically, they are quite distinct geographically.
The Inner Coastal Plain lies inland to the west and
northwest of the much larger Outer Coastal Plain. Within
the Bight watershed, the Inner Coastal Plain drains north into
Raritan Bay, while the Outer Coastal Plain, lying adjacent to the
Atlantic Ocean, drains directly into the New York Bight or into
the backbarrier coastal lagoons along the Jersey shore. Most of
the materials on both the Inner and Outer Coastal Plains in New
Jersey are marine-deposited sedimentary sands, gravels, and clays
overlain with later deposits made in interglacial Pleistocene
time, but the Inner Coastal Plain has a larger proportion of clay
in its soil than does the Outer Plain, which is sandier and also
the site of an important aquifer in the region. Soil differences
between the two Coastal Plain segments are significant. Because
of its more fertile soils, the Inner Plain has long been
distinguished as an important agricultural area that gives the
Garden State its name, while the Outer Plain, with its sandier,
excessively well-drained, and lower fertility soils, is dominated
by the equally renowned New Jersey pine barrens, now known as the
Pinelands. Although the Pinelands are typically viewed as being
very dry, in many places the water table is quite close to the
surface, giving rise to extensive wetlands. The Inner Coastal
Plain, whose sedimentary deposits were laid down during the
Cretaceous period, is separated from the Outer Coastal Plain, of
Tertiary age, by a belt of low hills called cuestas.
These cuestas are capped by a formation of cemented sands and
gravels; some of the larger hills are nearly 120 meters (400
feet) high, including Beacon Hill at 114 meters (373 feet) and
Arney's Mount at 70 meters (230 feet) above sea level. This
feature is not found on Coastal Plain sections to the south.
Altogether, the Coastal Plain of New Jersey may be viewed as a
plain that rises gradually from sea level on the east, west, and
south to elevations as high as nearly 120 meters (400 feet) where
the Inner and Outer Coastal Plains join at the
northeast-southwest trending cuestas. The major rivers draining
into the New York Bight from this relatively flat, low-lying
region are those that originate in the Pinelands, and include the
Mullica, Great Egg Harbor, Tuckahoe, Wading, Toms, Forked,
Metedeconk, and Manasquan Rivers. These rivers of the Pinelands
are slow-flowing, rich in humates that impart a brown tea color
to the water, low in nutrients, and acidic; many are tidal for
significant portions of their length.

The Coastal Plain deposits of New Jersey continue
northeastward, dipping downwards below the surface, to Long
Island, and lie buried well beneath the land surface on Long
Island. Unlike the New Jersey section of the Coastal Plain, the
surface of the Long Island lowlands is strongly modified
and covered by glacial deposits from the most recent (Wisconsin
stage) glaciation, and consists of moraine deposits, glacial
drift, and outwash materials. The general topography of Long
Island is that of a plain that slopes southward from an elevation
of roughly 60 meters (200 feet) or less along the middle and
northern portions of the island, at the crests of the two
terminal moraines, and grades gradually into extensive deposits
of outwash sands and gravels that reach sea level at the South
Shore of Long Island. The gentle southward-sloping area of
outwash materials emanating from the southernmost end moraine on
Long Island is often referred to as an outwash plain and
is similar to those found along the southeastern coast of New
England on Cape Cod and the outer islands of Martha's Vineyard,
Block Island, and Nantucket. The valleys of the South Shore
outwash plain, of uncertain origin, are characteristically short,
shallow, and indefinite depressions that have been called dry
rivers or furrows. Streams and rivers along the South Shore are
also very narrow and short in length; only two major rivers occur
along Long Island's South Shore, the Carmans River and the
Connetquot River.

Long Island has two prominent end moraines that traverse the
island almost from one end to the other, including both eastern
forks. The southernmost and older of the two moraines, the
Ronkonkoma Moraine, makes up the central and south fork sections
of Long Island, and includes the Montauk Peninsula. South of the
Ronkonkoma Moraine is an extensive outwash plain of
water-sorted sands and gravels deposited by meltwaters at the
edge of the ice; intermorainal outwash deposits also occur
between the two moraines. The Harbor Hills Moraine makes up the
north shore and north fork of the island, including Orient Point,
Plum Island, and Fishers Island. It is the younger of the two
moraines and is sometimes referred to as a recessional
moraine, marking where the glacier retreated from its position at
the Ronkonkoma Moraine and remained in place for an extended
period of time. Another speculation is that the Harbor Hills
Moraine represents a glacial advance that was preceded by an
interglacial stage. Near the western end of the island these two
moraines are united, becoming distinct about 32 kilometers (20
miles) east of New York City and separating at the east end where
they are 19 to 22 kilometers (12 to 14 miles) apart. The maximum
heights of the moraines are 119 meters (391 feet) in the Harbor
Hill moraine and 125 meters (410 feet) in the Ronkonkoma moraine;
both elevations occur west of the middle section of the island.
The New York Bight watershed boundary along the southern portion
of Long Island follows the approximate position and crest of the
Ronkonkoma Moraine in the eastern half of the island, and along
the ridge of the united moraines in the western half.

Along both the Long Island and New Jersey Atlantic coasts at
the very edge of the Atlantic Ocean, there is an extensive,
narrow strip of elongated barrier beaches, baymouth barriers,
barrier spits, and barrier islands, often broken by
tidal inlets, that is typically separated from the mainland by a
backbarrier lagoon (saltwater bay), a marsh system, or a
combination of the two. At the eastern end of Long Island, the
erosion of glacial morainal and till deposits at Montauk Point
serves as the headland source of the beach sands that comprise
the relatively recent (4,000 years) barrier island system and
offshore bars paralleling the shore for nearly three-fourths the
length of the island. Eroded glacial sediments are carried
westward from Montauk Point in the longshore, or littoral,
current and deposited by wave action on the barrier beaches and
offshore bars. In addition to the westward growth and movement of
the beaches on Long Island, there is also a landward migration of
this system in response to diminishing sediment supply and
relative sea level rise; the latter is estimated at around 15 to
40 centimeters (6 to 16 inches) per century in this region and
results in a shoreline retreat of 1 to 3 meters (3 to 9 feet) per
year in some places. In contrast to the erosion of glacial
materials on Long Island, in New Jersey the coastal plain
deposits of the Atlantic Highlands serve as the primary headland
source of sand for the beaches along the Atlantic coast of
southern New Jersey. Eroded materials from the region of the
Highlands are swept in the littoral current northward to form the
Sandy Hook peninsula, and southward towards Cape May to form the
greater part of the barrier beach system that is commonly known
as the Jersey Shore. As on Long Island, the New Jersey beaches
are also migrating landward in response to a global rise in sea
level.

The barrier beach system of the Jersey Shore south of Sandy
Hook may be viewed as being composed of three sub-areas, from
north to south: the mainland-fronting beach area from the
Atlantic Highlands south to Bay Head; the barrier beach segment
from Bay Head to Ocean City, where there is an extensive open
water lagoon system in back of the barrier beaches, with few
inlets; and the barrier beach section from Ocean City to Cape May
where inlets are more frequent, the barrier beach segments
shorter, and the backbarrier lagoon is being filled in by
sediments and dominated by marshes. A fourth sub-area, between
Brigantine/Little Egg Inlet and Ocean City, is transitional
between water-dominated and marsh-dominated backbarrier systems.
A similar pattern of barrier beach segments occurs along the
south shore of Long Island, running east to west: Montauk to
Southampton (mainland-fronting beaches); Southampton to Fire
Island Inlet (large open water lagoons or bays, with few inlets);
and from Fire Island Inlet to Coney Island (extensive backbarrier
marshes, more frequent inlets, shorter beach segments). The
barrier beach systems along the Atlantic Ocean shoreline of Long
Island and New Jersey often contain substantial dune ridges that
parallel the shoreline as well as extensive sand flats,
interdunal swales, and tidal marshes in back of the dunes.
Barrier beach systems as a rule are highly dynamic, constantly
changing their shapes, beach widths, and landforms, sometimes
radically, on a daily, seasonal, or annual basis, but especially
in response to extreme storm events such as hurricanes and
nor'easters, both of which are common in this region. These storm
events do considerable damage to man-made structures, but are an
important part of the natural coastal process and are quite
significant in maintaining a diversity of natural biological
communities on the beaches and in the lagoons.

2. Piedmont Province

Piedmont Lowlands (Northern Triassic Lowlands)

The Piedmont Province of the eastern United States extends
from the Hudson River at the north to Alabama at the south and
ranges from 16 kilometers (10 miles) wide at its narrowest, in
the Bight region, to about 200 kilometers (125 miles) at its
widest, near the Virginia-North Carolina border. The province as
a whole may be viewed as the nonmountainous portion of the older
Appalachian Mountains whose flat plateau surface is the product
of erosion and degradation. Along most of its length, the
Piedmont is situated between the Appalachian Mountains to the
west and the Coastal Plain to the east and slopes from the
mountains towards the coast. In the southern part of this
Province the boundary between the Piedmont and the Coastal Plain
is called the Fall Line or Fall Zone, so named because of the
prevalence of rapids and falls at the topographic juncture of the
more resistant and higher elevation rocks of the Piedmont and the
more erodible and lower-lying rocks and sediments of the Coastal
Plain. The Piedmont Province is divided into Upland and Lowlands
sections; in the northern portion of the Piedmont only the
Lowlands section is present, dominated by Triassic rocks. The
Lowlands are often further subdivided into Northern and Southern
Triassic Lowlands.

In the New York Bight watershed, the Piedmont Lowlands
section, also known as the Newark Basin or Triassic Lowlands,
represents the northern extension of an almost continuous
formation of reddish shales, mudstones, and sandstones that
stretches nearly 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) from the Hudson
River near the border of New Jersey and New York near Nyack, New
York, southward through Maryland into Virginia. There are also
scattered basins of these same rocks in New England and the
Canadian Maritime Provinces, but these are not considered part of
the Piedmont. In the Northeast, including the New York Bight
watershed, the Northern Triassic Lowlands section
extends from the Palisades of the Hudson River in New York State
southward to the Schuylkill River in Pennsylvania.

The Piedmont of the New York Bight watershed is a relatively
low-lying area of broad valleys and low hills that slopes gently
in a southeastward direction from its highest elevations of about
122 meters (400 feet) above sea level in northeastern New Jersey
to sea level at Newark Bay. It lies between the Highlands, or
Reading Prong, to the northwest and the Coastal Plain to the
southeast. The Piedmont's fertile, arable soils and flat, easily
developed terrain have resulted in dense urbanization over much
of the northeastern portion of this area and extensive
agricultural activity in its southwestern portion, with only
small fragments of natural habitat remaining. Its gently rolling
surface of readily erodible sedimentary sandstones and shales and
deep reddish soils is interrupted by ridges of erosion-resistant
igneous rock types, diabase and basalt, commonly called traprock.
The most prominent traprock ridges in this physiographic region
of the Bight are the three Watchung Mountain ranges of New
Jersey, composed of extrusive basalts, and the Palisades Sill,
composed of intrusive diabases; the latter extends more than 65
kilometers (40 miles) along the west bank of the Hudson River
shorelines of northeastern New Jersey and adjacent southeastern
New York, from west-central Staten Island north to Haverstraw,
New York. The Palisades form a line of near-vertical cliffs along
the Hudson with huge quantities of bouldery talus at their foot
slopes, and range from near sea level at their bases along the
river up to an average of 60 meters (200 feet) in elevation, with
some maximum local elevations of between 150 and 210 meters (500
to 700 feet). Several miles west of the Palisades, standing out
in bold relief in the Hackensack Meadowlands, are two small
intrusive plugs, offshoots of the Palisades diabase, known as
Snake Hill and Little Snake Hill. Still further west, maximum
elevations on the three Watchung Mountain ridges are 106, 200 and
260 meters (350, 650, and 850 feet).

Another conspicuous landscape feature of the Northern Triassic
Lowlands in the New York Bight watershed is the presence of large
glacial lakes, such as Glacial Lake Hackensack and Glacial Lake
Passaic in northeastern New Jersey; these were formed by the
terminal moraine blocking the Passaic River and the deposition of
other glacial materials blocking the Hackensack River. Two other
lakes are connected with this system: Glacial Lake Hudson and
Glacial Lake Flushing. Until glacial retreat allowed them to
drain, these lakes endured for thousands of years before being
filled with clay, sand, and gravel about 10,000 years ago and
later with peat deposits from the marshes that grew in them.
Today, the Passaic Meadows (Great Swamp/Great Piece Meadows/Troy
Meadows) and the Hackensack Meadowlands occupy the lake basins of
former Glacial Lakes Passaic and Hackensack, respectively.

3. New England Province

New England Uplands

New York/New Jersey Highlands (Reading Prong)

Manhattan Hills (Manhattan Prong)

Taconic Mountains
Taconic Highlands

Rensselaer Plateau

Stissing Mountain

The New England Province is essentially a northward
extension of the larger Appalachian Mountains or Highlands
region. It is a plateau-like upland that rises gradually inland
from the coast and is surmounted by mountain ranges or individual
peaks. The principal mountain ranges are the Green, Taconic, and
White, while the Berkshire Hills and Hoosac Mountains are
southern extensions of the Green Mountains and are of lesser
elevation. South and west of the Berkshires and Hoosac Mountains
the physiographic distinction between them and the Taconic
Mountains is difficult. The Province sends out two arms or prongs
southeastward from New England that serve to connect it with the
Appalachian provinces: the Manhattan Prong, which
terminates at the tip of Manhattan Island, and the Reading
Prong, which extends beyond the Hudson and Delaware Rivers
to Reading, Pennsylvania. The region is one of complex mountains
consisting primarily of metamorphic (schist, gneiss, slate, and
marble) and igneous (largely granites) rocks of very ancient age
that have been greatly compressed, uplifted, and deeply denuded,
first by fluvial agents and later by glaciers. With respect to
the latter, the New England Province differs from the southern
Appalachian region primarily in the fact that the entire region
was glaciated, except for a portion in western New Jersey and
Pennsylvania. Glaciation in this province, along with its more
rugged topography, preponderance of crystalline rocks, and
scarcity of calcareous rocks, has resulted in thinner, patchier,
and generally acidic tills, which are also quite stony and
bouldery. The geographic and physiographic complexity and
diversity of the province has led to the recognition of five
geomorphic sections: Taconic; Green Mountain; New England Upland;
White Mountain; and Seaboard sections. Some authors add a sixth
section: the Connecticut Valley Lowland.

The topography of the New England Uplands section is
that of a maturely-dissected plateau with narrow valleys, and the
entire area is greatly modified by glaciation. It is the most
widespread of the geomorphic sections in the New England
Province, extending from Canada through New England down to the
Seaboard section and extending southwestward through New York and
New Jersey as two narrow upland projections, the Reading and
Manhattan prongs previously mentioned. Numerous hills and
mountains rise above the general level of the upland; except in
the presence of mountains, the horizon of the regional landscape
is fairly level. Glaciation has resulted in the erosion and
rounding off of the bedrock topography and numerous rock basin
lakes. Glacial drift is thin, patchy, and stony, and ice-contact
features such as kames, kame terraces, and eskers are abundant.
The surface of the New England Uplands slopes southeast from
maximum inland altitudes around 670 meters (2,200 feet),
excluding the other mountainous sections of the province, to
about 122 to 152 meters (400 to 500 feet) along its seaward edge
at the narrow coastal Seaboard section, which goes down to sea
level.

In the New York Bight watershed, the New England Uplands
section is represented by a portion of the Taconic Mountains and
its foothills, and by the Reading and Manhattan Prongs that
extend southwestward from the New England states. Although
geologists refer to the larger of these extensions as the Reading
Prong, in this region it is more commonly known as the New
York - New Jersey Highlands, and locally as the Hudson
Highlands, the New Jersey Highlands, the Ramapo Mountains, or
simply the Highlands. The Highlands are bounded on the southeast
and on the northwest by the lowlands of the Piedmont and Great
Valley provinces, respectively. The mountains and valleys that
make up the Highlands are part of a relatively long, linear, and
narrow regional geological feature that averages 16 to 32
kilometers (10 to 20 miles) in width, with a maximum width of 40
kilometers (25 miles), and extends in a southwest-northeast
trending direction for nearly 225 kilometers (140 miles), from
southeastern Pennsylvania near Reading, to southwestern
Connecticut in the vicinity of Danbury, where it joins the
Taconic Mountains and Housatonic Highlands of the New England
Uplands plateau. The Hudson River cuts a deep gorge through the
Highlands in New York in that stretch of the river between
Peekskill on the south and Newburgh on the north.

The New York - New Jersey Highlands section is very complex
geologically and is composed predominantly of erosion-resistant,
contorted, and strongly metamorphosed crystalline rocks (gneisses
and schists) and marble, mostly overlain with glacial till, with
many areas of softer limestones and shales, especially in the
valleys. This large group of rocks, the oldest in the Bight
watershed, that makes up the Highlands is called the Highlands
Complex. The northern section of the Highlands was glaciated
during the last glacial period, resulting in very different
landscape features and physiography north and south of the
terminal moraine (along which Interstate 80 traversing east-west
through northern New Jersey is roughly aligned). Areas to the
north of the moraine are more rugged in topography, with massive,
discontinuous rock ridges, steep, narrow valleys, frequent rock
outcroppings, and elevations averaging about 300 meters (ca.
1,000 feet) up to 460 meters (1,500 feet) above sea level. The
northern section also contains many large, glacially-formed lakes
and wetlands and is generally heavily forested; all of these
features are of great ecological significance. The southern
portion of the Highlands is more gently sloping and less
dissected, with more open agricultural lands and early
successional vegetation; elevations are as low as 105 meters (350
feet) in the valleys. Where the Hudson River cuts through the
Highlands in the vicinity of West Point and Storm King, the
physiographic relief is often quite dramatic and ranges from
nearly sea level at the base along the river to 425 meters (1,400
feet) in elevation. Soils in the Highlands, especially in the
northern, glaciated sections, are generally very shallow, rocky,
and strongly acidic. One especially noteworthy feature of the
Highlands is the fact that it is an important drainage divide and
headwater source for several major river systems in the watershed
including the Raritan, Passaic, Wallkill, and Croton Rivers, as
well as several rivers draining westward into the Delaware River
watershed.

The Manhattan Prong, also known as the ManhattanHills, is a landscape of rolling hills and valleys with
elevations generally less than 100 meters (330 feet) above sea
level, but ranging from sea level to nearly 275 meters (900 feet)
above sea level. The highest point in Manhattan, in Fort Tryon
Park, is about 80 meters (260 feet). The bedrock of the Manhattan
Prong underlies much of southwestern Connecticut, Westchester
County, New York, and New York City, and ends at the southern tip
of Manhattan Island. The valleys are principally marble and more
easily erodible than the schists and gneisses of this unit's
higher elevations. The hills are primarily erosion-resistant and
tightly folded metamorphic rocks, mostly gneisses and schists
with some local deposits of quartzite, overlain with till and
coastal plain deposits; they represent the vestiges of ancient,
worn-down mountain ranges. Three distinct metamorphic rock
formations make up the Manhattan Prong; known collectively as the
New York City group, these are: the highly folded and contorted
Fordham gneiss, the oldest and most widespread of the formations;
the Inwood marble, derived from dolomitic limestone; and the
younger Manhattan Formation, consisting largely of mica schist,
overlying the Inwood marble and making up most of the rock
outcrops on Manhattan Island. The soils are mostly acidic,
shallow to deep, and rocky. Rivers of note in this geomorphic
unit include the Harlem River, the lower Hudson River, the East
River, and the Bronx River. All of these are underlain by Inwood
marble except for the Bronx River; it originally flowed through
the marble valley, but changed its course to its present flow
through mica schist.

Just south of the Manhattan Prong, Staten Island is
geologically distinctive and unique in the watershed in that it
is partially underlain by serpentine rock, or serpentinite, an
altered igneous rock with characteristic physical and chemical
properties. The chemical properties of serpentine often exert a
profound influence on the flora and vegetation of an area. Few
deposits of this material exist elsewhere in the region, making
Staten Island's serpentine rocks regionally significant, even
though small in total area.

The Taconic Mountains section of the New England
Province runs in a narrow north-south trending strip along the
southeastern border of New York, the southwestern border of
Vermont, the western border of Massachusetts, and the
northwestern border of Connecticut. To the west, the Taconics are
bordered by the Hudson Valley portion of the Great Valley, while
their eastern boundary is formed by the Berkshires and by the
Hoosac Mountains, which are southern extensions of the Green
Mountains of Vermont. The bedrock geology and geological history
of this region are extremely complex and diverse, with intensely
folded and faulted metamorphic shales, slates, phyllites,
quartzite, schists, gneisses, and graywacke
(sandstone/conglomerate) predominating in the uplands, and belts
of carbonates, limestone, and marble forming the valleys. Much of
this area's geological complexity is the result of a collision
between an ancient volcanic island arc and the continent of
proto-North America; this collision pushed rocks from western
Massachusetts into New York around 450 million years ago, bending
and upthrusting rocks which had lain flat. The uptilted edges of
these different layers have been differentially worn away
according to their rock type; softer rocks (carbonates, e.g.,
limestones and marbles) are worn away to form the valleys, while
the more erosion-resistant harder rocks form the hills. This
gives the Taconics its characteristic topography of sharp ridges
and narrow valleys.

Elevations along the more low-lying western edge of this
geomorphic section, adjacent to the Hudson Valley, begin at about
120 meters (400 feet) above sea level and increase in elevation
up to around 610 meters (2,000 feet) along the Massachusetts
state line, averaging around 550 to 610 meters (1,800 to 2,000
feet); maximum elevation in Massachusetts is close to 850 meters
(2,800 feet). Elevations also generally decrease toward the
south, a reflection of the harder quartzites and gneisses in the
north and predominance of softer shales, slates, and limestones
in the southern portions. While the higher peaks of the Taconic
Mountains lie eastward and outside of the New York Bight
watershed, their western slopes or foothills extend into the
eastern New York section of the watershed along its border with
western New England. These western foothills of the Taconic
Mountains are sometimes referred to as the Taconic Highlands.
Their north-south oriented landscape is relatively steep and
hilly near their easternmost edge, adjacent to the Taconic
Mountains in the states of Vermont, Massachusetts, and
Connecticut, and becomes progressively more gently rolling
westward, towards the Hudson River valley. In the southern
portion of these foothills, where the elevations are lowest, the
landscape is largely that of a broad, gently undulating valley.
There are considerable open, nonforested lands with extensive
agriculture over much of this region. Soils on the uplands are
relatively acid, coarse-textured, and often shallow, while
valleys are more fertile and basic and contain extensive
vegetated wetland complexes. Carbonate outcrops are common in the
valleys.

Two areas within the Taconic section are especially
distinctive: the Rensselaer Plateau and Stissing Mountain. The Rensselaer
Plateau or Rensselaer Hills, underlain with
Cambrian quartzites and graywacke, is a nonmountainous area of
the Taconics located about 16 kilometers (10 miles) east of
Albany in the northeastern corner of the New York Bight watershed
study area. It projects prominently above the Hudson Valley and
the surrounding foothills of the Taconics to the west, north, and
south, and above the valley of the Little Hoosic River, which
separates the plateau from the higher ridges of the Taconic
Mountain range to the east. This hilly plateau is about 32
kilometers (20 miles) long and 14 kilometers (9 miles) wide, with
surface elevations generally ranging from 457 to 610 meters
(1,500 to 2,000 feet) high. Its surface topography is rolling,
with broad swells and long slopes, and contains many swamps and
lakes. Most of the land is wooded, with little active agriculture
owing to the thin, stony soils covered by glacial boulders.

Stissing Mountain (428 meters [1,403 feet]), located
in Dutchess County, New York, about 16 kilometers (10 miles) west
of the Connecticut-New York border near Lakeville, Connecticut,
rises abruptly nearly 305 meters (1,000 feet) above the
surrounding lowlands. In contrast to the slate hills to the west
and carbonate lowlands and wetlands to the east that surround it,
the nearly 8-kilometer (5-mile) long Stissing Mountain is
composed of hard, erosion-resistant and acidic Precambrian
gneisses overlain in many places by Lower Cambrian quartzites.
The gneisses themselves overlie, or float on, much younger rocks,
probably the result of thrust faulting, also common elsewhere in
the Taconic section. The east side of Stissing Mountain is the
steepest, with slopes averaging 40 percent. Its slopes and crests
are heavily forested, with scattered rock outcrops, vertical
ledges, and very rocky, shallow, acidic soils formed from glacial
till derived from gneiss; substantial accumulations of talus at
the foot of the mountain consist of large blocks of gneiss.

The Ridge and Valley Province of the New York Bight watershed
is part of a much larger geological province that extends from
Canada to the southern United States as a narrow belt of sinuous
ridges and interconnecting valleys with a general
northeast-southwest orientation. The lowland valley section of
this province is generally referred to as the Great Valley.
Within the New York Bight watershed, the Great Valley section
is collectively composed of the Kittatinny, Wallkill and
Hudson Valleys. This section consists of a long and
continuous valley system that curves gently northeastward through
northwestern New Jersey from the Delaware River through the Kittatinny
Valley of New Jersey and the Wallkill Valley of New
Jersey and New York to the confluence of the Hudson River, and
then continues northwards up the Hudson Valley to the
Champlain Valley, beyond the New York Bight watershed boundary.
These valleys are broad and gently rolling and surrounded, from
south to north, by the Kittatinny, Shawangunk, Catskill, and
Helderberg Mountains on the west and northwest, by the Taconic
Mountains to the east, and by the New York - New Jersey Highlands
to the southeast. The valleys themselves were created largely by
the actions of groundwater and surface water slowly dissolving
and eroding the carbonate bedrocks (sedimentary shales and
limestones) that underlie much of the region. Because of the rich
soils and flatness of the terrain, coupled with a relatively mild
climate, much of the valley region is in agriculture, with
localized centers of industry and residential development; there
are also sizable areas of forests and wetlands.

The northern Kittatinny Valley and the Wallkill
Valley lie within the watershed boundaries of the New York
Bight and are drained by the northeast-flowing Wallkill River and
its tributaries from their origin in northwestern New Jersey up
to the Wallkill's confluence with Rondout Creek close to where
the Rondout flows into the Hudson River. This section of the
Great Valley averages 16 to 25 kilometers (10 to 15 miles) in
width and has a broad, flat to undulating contour varying in
elevation from about 120 to 300 meters (400 to 1,000 feet) above
sea level, with most of the land lying below 150 meters (500
feet). The valleys are mostly underlain with limestones,
dolomites, and shales, and largely covered with glacial till. The
valley soils are deep, fertile, and relatively well-drained,
except for restricted areas of peats and mucks, which are the
sites of former shallow glacial lakes. The southern Kittatinny
Valley southwest of and contiguous with the Wallkill Valley is
drained by the Paulins Kill southwestward to the Delaware River
and is, therefore, outside of the New York Bight watershed. At
the Delaware River, the Great Valley system continues to the
southwest into Pennsylvania.

Included in the valley section of the Ridge and Valley
Province is the long narrow valley that lies between the
Shawangunk - Kittatinny ridgeline and Allegheny Plateau. In the
New York State section of this valley, west of the Shawangunks,
the valley is continuous from Pennsylvania, near Port Jervis, New
York, northeastward to the Hudson River. The valley is known to
geologists as the Port Jervis Trough, but locally by the
names of rivers and creeks that run through it. To the west and
north of the Shawangunk ridgeline, this valley is drained by the
northeastward-flowing Rondout Creek, which joins the Wallkill
River just east of Rosendale, New York and then continues east a
short distance to join the Hudson River near Kingston, New York.
In this same narrow valley west of the Shawangunk ridgeline, but
south of and in headwater opposition to Rondout Creek, the Basher
Kill and Neversink River flow southwestward to drain into the
Delaware River; this section of the valley is not a part of the
New York Bight watershed. Similarly, the valley of the Delaware
River (Minisink Valley) and other small tributary valleys west of
the Kittatinny ridgeline in New Jersey, though a part of the
Ridge and Valley Province in the state, lie outside the New York
Bight watershed and are therefore not included in this report.

Within the north-central section of the New York Bight
watershed project area, the Hudson Valley forms a narrow
corridor of rolling plains and hills, averaging around 16
kilometers (10 miles) across in width in an east-west direction,
from the vicinity of Troy downriver to Newburgh. The Hudson River
is very much a dominant landscape feature in this section of the
Ridge and Valley Province. Interlaced among the hills and plains
of the valley are long, narrow, stream bottomlands and wetlands.
The valley is composed primarily of sedimentary shales,
siltstones, sandstones, and limestones; most of the soils derived
from these materials are medium-textured and acid to slightly
acid in pH. Closer to the river, the soils are mostly
medium-textured to fine-textured glacial lake or marine
sediments; in the Albany area there are coarse sandy and gravelly
soils derived from a large delta built along the west shores of
Glacial Lake Albany, whose waters filled most of the valley some
15,000 years ago. Elevations range from near sea level at the
southern end of this valley to 60 meters (200 feet) high, with
some maximum local elevations of just under 150 meters (500
feet). In a few areas below Kingston there are a number of hills,
not typical of the rest of this region, that approach or exceed
300 meters (ca. 1,000 feet) in elevation.

The Shawangunk - Kittatinny Mountain ridgeline is the
northernmost ridge in the Ridge and Valley Province and the only
prominent ridgeline of this province in the watershed except for
the much smaller Schunnemunk Mountain situated along the
eastern edge of the valley adjacent to the Highlands. Beyond the
watershed to the southwest, the Kittatinny Ridge continues to the
Delaware River where it is cut by the Delaware Water Gap. West of
the Delaware River the Kittatinny Mountain ridge continues
southwestward into Pennsylvania to Wind Gap, Pennsylvania, where
the ridge continues south and southwestward as Blue Mountain. The
Shawangunk - Kittatinny Ridge is nearly 160 kilometers (100
miles) long, stretching northeastward from the Delaware River in
northwestern New Jersey to its northeastern terminus
approximately 16 kilometers (10 miles) southwest of Kingston, New
York. It is composed of sharply-folded sedimentary rocks, mostly
shale, capped with erosion-resistant sandstones and quartz
conglomerates, with increasing amounts of limestone on the
western slopes along the Delaware River. As a result of these
different bedrocks and their dip, steep cliffs are prominent
along the east slope of the ridge while gentle slopes prevail on
the western side. The overall shape of the ridge is that of a
long, narrow, pointed dumbbell, with the center section being the
narrowest (less than 2 kilometers [1.25 miles] wide) and areas
near the two ends widening out to more than 10 kilometers (6
miles) in width. Elevations at the base start at about 120 meters
(400 feet) above sea level; along the ridgetop elevations average
well over 300 meters (1,000 feet). The highest elevation in the
Kittatinny section of the ridge is 550 meters (1,803 feet), at
High Point, New Jersey; in the Shawangunk section, highest
elevation is 698 meters (2,289 feet) at Lake Maratanza, New York.
Glaciated northern sections of the ridge contain several rock
basin lakes scoured out by the ice sheet, such as Sunfish Pond,
Lake Marcia, and Mohonk and Minnewaska Lakes. Most of the land
area is in forest, rocky outcrops, and bare escarpments.

5. Appalachian Plateaus Province

Glaciated Allegheny Plateau

Catskill Mountains

Helderberg Mountains

The Appalachian Plateaus Province is a broad belt of
flat-lying and relatively unfolded layers of sedimentary rock,
sandstones, shales, limestones, and conglomerates, that extends
from northern New York State, from just north of the Catskill
Mountains west to the vicinity of Cleveland, Ohio; from there it
extends southward through Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee to
northwestern Alabama, where it meets the Coastal Plain. Several
geomorphic sections have been identified and delineated over this
Province, including the Allegheny Mountains, Catskill Mountains,
Cumberland Mountains, and Cumberland Plateau. Along its edges,
the Appalachian Plateaus Province is bounded by outfacing
escarpments or dissected mountain fronts, which impart an almost
mountainous topography to the region, especially along the
eastern margin of the province. The Catskill Mountains are a
prominent example of this mountainous appearance, owing to the
strong physiographic relief in those areas adjacent to the
low-lying Hudson and Kittatinny Valleys.

The Glaciated Allegheny Plateau in the New York Bight
watershed represents the northeasternmost part of the Appalachian
Plateaus Province. It is a maturely dissected plateau that has
been extensively modified by Pleistocene glaciations,
particularly the late Wisconsin glaciation. Within the Bight
watershed it is a mostly high and rugged plateau region formed of
uplifted marine sandstones and shales, and is characterized by
flat-topped hills and deeply dissected valleys. This region forms
the northwestern border of the New York Bight watershed study
area.

The Catskill Mountains or Catskills, as they
are commonly known, are situated along the western edge of the
Hudson Valley west of Kingston and Catskill, New York, and
contain the highest peaks in the New York Bight study watershed.
The highest topography in the Appalachian Plateaus Province, the
Catskills are not technically mountains at all, but an eroded,
topographically dissected plateau that has been carved by stream
erosion into sharp-crested divides. Such areas as the Catskills
and Poconos are called mountains largely because of the shape of
their landforms rather than on the basis of their origin, and the
name persists. Indeed, this impression of mountains is especially
reinforced along the eastern edge of the Catskills where the
plateau escarpment stands 915 meters (3,000 feet) above the
Hudson Valley floor to the east. Especially noteworthy is the
fact that the highest peaks of the Catskills, constituting an
area approximately 64 kilometers (40 miles) in diameter, are all
at about the same elevation, with 34 peaks over 1,067 meters
(3,500 feet). Geomorphologists have different theories about
this. Some think it is the result of regional uplifting and
erosion of a former plain; others think that, because the high
peaks of the Catskills are all formed of the same
erosion-resistant sandstones, they have worn down at the same
rate and therefore continue to have very similar heights.
Elevations at the eastern base of the Catskills adjacent to the
Hudson Valley start at around 175 meters (500 feet) and increase
rapidly to where local elevations over much of the area average
well over 610 meters (2,000 feet); indeed, many of the higher
peaks are over 915 meters (3,000 feet) above sea level. The
maximum elevation in the Catskills is 1,274 meters (4,180 feet),
at the top of Slide Mountain, the highest point in the New York
Bight study area. The topography of this section is extremely
rugged, dominated by high peaks, steep ridges, and deep ravines,
and containing few streams and valleys, perhaps due to the
extreme permeability of the sandstones. On the peaks themselves
glacial till deposits and soils are quite thin and there is a
fair amount of exposed bedrock, in contrast to the valleys which
contain thick glacial deposits and rock debris. Several headwater
streams drain the high peaks of the Catskills and flow into three
major drainage systems: the Delaware, Hudson, and Mohawk Rivers.
Within the New York Bight, or Hudson River, watershed portion of
these mountains, the major tributary is Esopus Creek, which
essentially divides the Catskills into two distinct clusters of
high peaks. Other rivers of note within the watershed include
Kaaterskill Creek, Plattekill Creek, and Rondout Creek. The major
rivers of the other drainage systems are the Neversink and
Delaware Rivers, which drain into the Delaware River watershed,
and Schoharie Creek, which drains into the Mohawk River which, in
turn, drains into the Hudson River system north of Troy, north of
the study area.

The Helderberg Mountains comprise a relatively
restricted section of the Appalachian Plateau and form the
northeastern border of the Glaciated Allegheny Plateau. Like the
Catskills, the Helderbergs represent an eroded and dissected
portion of the Allegheny Plateau and are not true mountains.
Because the principal limestones (Helderberg group) that make up
these mountains are more erosion-resistant than the layers below
and above them, the eastern and northeastern faces of the
Helderberg Mountains form a very steep and pronounced escarpment,
or cliff face, and contain numerous caves. It is this cliff face,
the Helderberg Escarpment, that gives the area its
topographic prominence and regional significance. The Helderberg
region as a whole is characterized by a plateau-like appearance,
with flat hilltops intermixed with steep, shallow-soil valleys
and elevations that range from 274 to 488 meters (900 to 1,600
feet) above sea level. Elevations at the base of the eastern and
northeastern faces of the Helderberg Escarpment range from about
150 to 245 meters (500 to 800 feet), with average elevations
along the top ranging from 305 to 365 meters (1,000 to 1,200
feet). The highest elevation in the Helderbergs within the
watershed study area is 555 meters (1,822 feet); to the west,
outside the watershed, the highest peak in the Helderbergs stands
at 668 meters (2,191 feet). The mountains are heavily forested,
though elsewhere in this geomorphic section and in the adjacent
Hudson and Mohawk Valleys, a much larger percentage of the area
is in open fields and shrublands.

References:

Angermeier, P.L. and A. Bailey. 1992. Use of a geographic
information system in the conservation of rivers in Virginia,
USA. In P.J. Boon, P. Calow, and G.E. Petts (eds.) River
conservation and management, pp. 151-160. John Wiley &
Sons, Chichester, England.

Dickinson, N.R. 1979. A division of southern and western New
York State into ecological zones. Unpublished report for the New
York State Department of Environmental Conservation, Wildlife
Resources Center, Delmar, NY.

National Research Council. 1992. Restoration of aquatic
ecosystems: science, technology, and public policy.
Committee on Restoration of Aquatic Ecosystems - Science,
Technology, and Public Policy, National Academy of Sciences.
National Academy Press, Washington, D.C. 552 p.